


By the Fire

by Strain_of_the_Stress



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-17
Updated: 2017-02-17
Packaged: 2018-09-25 02:25:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9798332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Strain_of_the_Stress/pseuds/Strain_of_the_Stress
Summary: A one-shot of my new Fallout Character. Depending on the response to this, I might keep writing her. Just wanted to try her on for good measure.





	

The smell of wet soil filled her nose as she stared through the rifle sight, the cool breeze rustling her dirty blonde hair as she laid on the ground, watching, waiting. Through the trees she had spotted the movement, heard the slight rustling over the soft breeze of the early evening, her head turning as a deer spotting a predator… or a wolf hearing prey.

Through the muted green circle of her recon sight she could watch the scavenger sit by the beginnings of what might eventually be a fire, staring into the kindling as he drank from a milk carton of dirty water. He had sat down a few minutes prior, the tattered shirt hanging off of his thin frame as he had found what relaxation he could after a day of… well she didn’t actually know. Nor did she care.

It had been three weeks since she had woken up from the cryo-chamber, stumbled out with tears of torment and grief still frozen to her face as she helplessly fumbled with the controls to her husband’s chamber, grief frozen for years flooding back as she stared at the still face she had loved for so long… a frozen red stain on the white painted steel reminding her how long it would remain still. Since then she had wandered the commonwealth, shocked by the desolation of a place she had once called home, the sight of houses which she had walked in, laughed in, reduced to dusty rubble by a few minutes of terror. The city loomed as a ghostly reminder of what once was, desolate and decaying, the wind whistling a whine of years past as the rad storms rolled overhead.

At first she had been numb to it all, the cold from the Vault never quite leaving. She had secured her survival – food, shelter, water – but at night she would sit in her sleeping bag, staring through the holes in the wall at the starry sky above, empathizing with the nothingness which sat in-between the stars. She had travelled to Concord, as Codsworth had suggested, engaged the raiders, killed a deathclaw (a feat which the endless stream of compliments from Preston told her was something to be proud of), found the excuse of a settlement called “Diamond City” and even met the odd robot detective, but through all of it she couldn’t feel her heart-beat. The memory of bullets flying over a long-forgotten battlefield, her slice of a war which had defined her world but nobody else’s, had rung in her ears, the heart-pounding adrenaline rush as the morphine flowed from her hands to the sick and injured… but it was all gone. For three weeks she had wandered the commonwealth, fought with countless raiders, and felt nothing.

Soon, though, the ache in her shoulder from the hunting rifle’s recoil had become familiar, comforting almost. The weaponry was awkward in her hands, the bandage her weapon of choice in her time, but from the first radroach she had shot, the 10mm shaking as she stared in horror at the insect the size of a small dog, the commonwealth made it clear that there was no room for medics in this world. A medical degree lay yellowing and decaying in a house she refused to enter as her boots strode off into the world, the mercy that was once at her fingertips irradiated into dust, just as the world it once served. It had been a slow transition, each shot only slightly more comfortable than the last, the pull of the trigger becoming slowly more natural every time.

It was a harmless day of exploration, another 12 hours of crunching soil and tired feet as Jane wandered the commonwealth, her mind blank as the trees and miles passed her. The ground was a dull brownish green as the sun shone over her, noon only a few hours ago as the bitter taste of her Radroach lunch hung in her mouth. The forest surrounding her was oppressively quiet, the absence of birds in this post-apocalyptic dream subtly startling, the wind the only sound to comfort her. As she walked, Jane had caught movement to her left, her developing reactions pushing her to the ground, her familiar taped hunting rifle in her hand as her scope found the man. He was dressed simply, jeans and a battered T-shirt as he wandered through the wasteland, looking. The jet-black hair sat on his head like snow on a mountain peak, and his forehead was worn from years of survival as he trudged through the forest, his pace neither impressive nor meandering. Jane’s crosshairs had quickly found the center of his head, her mind thinking as she watched him, wondering why he was here, what he was doing.

She was not nearly experienced enough in the ways of the commonwealth to guess at his profession, or his history, but the more she thought the more he drifted away from any story she could devise. Slowly the thought crept into her mind, a black cloud of instinct more than a single, concerted thought. It felt of burning resentment and confused anger, the diluted bewilderment of a woman who awoke in a world between nightmare and dream to find her husband dead and her infant missing. It tasted of the loss of three lives; her husband’s left on the back of a cryo chamber, her son’s missing in this Kafkaesque purgatory, and hers in the center of the rubble left from two hundred years ago. It smelled of a world hostile to her from day one, who’s endless barrage of human wretchedness she could never escape. Her thoughts turned to all the violence, all the death, the murder and theft, betrayal and abandonment she had seen since awaking, the base levels of humanity which the apocalypse had exposed, like skeletons buried deep in a hastily forgotten grave.

Her conclusion was made before her mind. Slowly her finger pulled on the trigger, drawing it back with a practiced calm. The shot surprised her. She watched through the scope as a red mist escaped the opposite side of the man’s head and his frame collapsed underneath him. She felt… nothing. If anything, the clean shot, the easy kill, brought a certain satisfaction to her face. As she stood up, slung her rifle back over her shoulder, her mind slowly built the rationale behind the trigger pull, figured out the conclusion that her hand had made long before: there are no good people in the commonwealth. Sure, she had met exceptions. Preston was good at heart, Piper was a dedicated sister (if a questionable reporter), and Nick had helped her selflessly from day one. But for every good person she had met, there were a thousand raiders, whose bullets she had dodged and carnage she had waded through, to convince her. There was no such thing as innocent until proven guilty in the Commonwealth. Everybody was guilty, until they had proven to her otherwise.

The barren landscape had taken a different appearance after that. The desolate forrest became a marksman’s practice ground; the whistling city an urban shooting gallery. She didn’t go looking for a fight, per-se, but rarely a day went by that her rifle was quiet, and she had become a very good shot. Her rifle had improved with her accuracy, the taped wooden stock replaced by a marksman’s frame, courtesy of a small camp to the southwest. Her short scope had given way to a medium, and then recon scope, the latter thanks to Rodriguez, the kind man shocked at the jar of caps which had come out of her bags to pay for it.

The weapon had ceased to be a rifle, it had become first a tool and then an instrument. She began to wield it with the economic flourish of an artist, every action deliberate, every movement practiced. Its weight on her back brought comfort through the days, its shadow by her side security at night. The shots got cleaner, her targets slumping to the ground amid the confused yells of their compatriots, the satisfaction of a job well-done the only impulse in her mind after the shock of the recoil. Her resentment still broiled inside of her, the memory of her baby son and the warmth of her husband’s embrace haunting her good dreams, the cold left in their wake terrorizing her bad. But she was no longer numb. This world had left her with many things – anger, embitterment, confusion – every day a new Sisyphean quest to find purpose in a world torn apart and left for dead. But now she had one thing – satisfaction; of a honed art, of a clean shot. And besides, they lived in the commonwealth: they were all guilty of something.

The man in-front of the fire looked up, the movement through her scope waking her from the short reverie, her target standing as he moved. She saw a tree coming between her and the form in her crosshairs and her breath paused, her finger pulling slowly at the trigger, the adrenaline pumping.

A girl ran out and hugged the man, his yell of pleasure sounding all the way to Jane as he reached down and picker her up, spinning her around as he cherished her in his arms.

With a start Jane’s finger flew off the trigger, her breathing suddenly fast and ragged as memories flooded her mind of fantasies of the child she almost had. Would have, she reminded herself. She watched through the scope as a woman followed the girl, who couldn’t be more than five or six, the slow smile on her face full of love in a bleak world, a short kiss between the parents carrying the tenderness of a million sonnets. Jane’s breath stopped altogether as she watched a sight she had never seen before, the happy family sitting on their stumps around the campfire, the meat divided in measly portions onto the cracked plates. Suddenly the doll trodden into the ground became a happy afternoon  instead of a terrible crime, the woman’s blouse folded in the tattered suitcase a genuine gift instead of a despicable theft.

The world around her was thrown into early evening as the clouds turned a deep orange and red in the sunset. Jane rolled over, sitting up to the click of her safety re-engaging. She stood and brushed the dust off of her front, her actions measured, deliberate, as she started walking towards the city once more, the warmth of the family’s fire still sitting in her eyes. The sun sank as she made her way towards the city, and as it did her vision became blurry, ever so slightly, as her heart felt to open a little bit, the crusted resignation of her new world giving way to reveal a tenderness she had forgotten was there.

A tiny wet circle on the ground marked her path as she walked away. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a one-shot, i know. But while I was playing my new Sole Survivor, and writing some of the headcanon for her, this idea popped into my head, and I just couldn't get it out. depending on whether you guys like it, I might keep her going. Or I might just because I kind of dig her character, i think she's the most complex one I've tried to write yet. Anyways, know I haven't written much recently, I've got a few new responsibilities which have been keeping me from that. But I promise, I'll still be working on a lot of my other stories. I would hate to leave them unfinished. As always, let me know what you think in the comments! Since this is a new character, your input would be greatly appreciated! Plus, I don't do one-shots very often (at least, I think this is a one-shot), so I'd like to know what you think!


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